Mann vs Machine
by DiavolD
Summary: Red team returned to Coal Town for a short "visit", still as barren and hot as always. But this time, they are short on members and are greeted by machine killing robots who want them dead, and there is no respawning this time.
1. Chapter 1

_**Reviews and feedback are much appreciated, your opinions matters!~**_

Chapter 1

"Dummkopf!" yelled the angry German as he hit the backside of the Aussie's head.

"Oi! Wot was that for?" Sniper yelled back and glared at him while fixing his hat.

"Ve are in zee vrong base if you haven't noticed!" shouted the Medic as he pointed to the abandoned old town with his gloved finger.

"Well it ain't my fault we're in Coal Town. If that over hyperactive bunny haven't jumping around all over the bloody place, maybe we'll still be on the right road!" shifting the blame onto the young Bostonian who was stretching his skinny legs after the long ride.

"Hey, hey, hey! What are ya blaming me for?" exclaimed Scout defensively with his arms waving in front of him. "The fatty over here was chasing me for a lousy sandwich!"

"Little man stole my sandvich!" complained the large Russian to the Medic while bearing his teeth at Scout.

"You had, like, frikin' ten of 'em, and you ate the other nine," said Scout as he rolled his eyes in disgust.

"But Medic made it for ME!"

"Ye, and it tasted real good too."

"GAAAAAH!" screamed Heavy and once again, started chasing Scout in circles.

"Schweinhunds! Stop zis at once!" scolded the Medic as he joined in the chase without knowing.

Sniper heaved a sigh, and took a seat on some old dusty crates next to the Engineer who was calmly watching the other three running in circles. The Australian took a look around the old base, surrounded completely by the hot sunny desert. There were no trees or any greens for miles, not even bits of dried up grass dead on the ground. Just the dusty ground with pebbles of any size here and there, and many bales of hay. He soon spotted a small stable buck near the piles of hay leaning on it for support.

"Well that explains for all this hay lying around," thought Sniper to himself.

The Texan, who was leaning his arm on some empty barrels, began to laugh and slapped his knee. He calmed down after a few minutes and turn to Sniper with a huge grin on his face.

"Mah, don't they act like headless chickens runnin' in panic?" said Engineer and gave a little chuckle.

Sniper gave a slight single nod and pulled down his favorite hat down, almost covering his line of sight. He was embarrassed of his teammates, even though no one else was watching or around.

"Lighten up buddy,' said Engineer as he put his single gloved hand on Sniper's shoulder. "We still got two more days until we go into battle again."

"At least the Announcer was kind enough to give us a one day break," Sniper said with a hint of relief in his voice. He needed the break, even if it didn't last as long as he wanted. He was too impatient for his contract to end, which was another three months, but at least they paid him handsomely. "But I'm worried about the others..."

"They'll be fine Snipe, the Blues won't know the five of us took the wrong road. Besides, the four of them can take care or themselves. The only thing we gotta worry about is Soldier," said Engineer with a shudder as he unconsciously rubbed his left ear gently.

Sniper barely pushed his orange tainted sunglasses upward to pinch the bridge of his nose and said wearily, "Moi ears can't take much more of his voice, he has lungs of steel."

Engineer gave a soft chuckle before replying," I couldn't agree with you more, son. But Soldier chewin' us out for arriving late will have to wait, we got bigger problems."

"Right," Sniper agreed, "we're out of gas and stuck in the middle of nowhere."

"And this place looks pretty darn run-down, and it might collapse at any goddamn second."

Sniper took another look around, ignoring the brawl between the other three, where Medic was pulling hard on Heavy's ear meanwhile putting a tight headlock on Scout who was kicking around furiously. The wooden buildings, all pale and brown fading with a few splits of wood peeling. And the staircases leading up to these old buildings are bent down as if someone were standing there, not moving for a very long time. Not to mention, a sign with smudged unreadable words saying, "HALE'S COAL TOWN", and that was pretty much the only legible words. But in the far distance, there is a huge blue lump. He squinted, allowing his hawk-eye to see further than normally, but suddenly something tackled him. Sniper was thrown onto the sun-baked ground, along with the obnoxious Scout.

"Holy Dooley!" Sniper yelled loudly as his back hit the ground with a huge impact with Scout spread on top of him. First instinct for Sniper was to kick Scout off of him to relieve himself from such an awkward position for two men to be in. His heel, then his whole foot implanted onto Scout's stomach knocking the wind right out of Scout's mouth and sent him flying onto the Medic standing nearby. The Medic managed to dodge the incoming Scout by a few centimeters and Scout soon met the ground once more, and landed with a loud thud on his butt.

The Engineer cleverly avoided this whole scenario by standing back, behind a stack of golden yellow hay. He strode over to the Australian who's leg was up in the air and helped him back up on his feet as Heavy was towering over Scout, but roaring with laughter.

"Thanks mate," thanking Engineer who helped pulled him up from the rough ground.

"No problem pardner, and you had quite a fall there," commented Engineer, " does your back hurt?"

"Yeah," replied Sniper as he rubbed his sore back with the palm of his hand, "it will take some time, especially at this age."

"Good to hear that your alright," grinned Engineer softly, "easy to break a thing or two."

"You got that right..." said Sniper as he turned his head away from the Southerner to the moaning Scout.

"Aw jeez! My bum, I think it's cracked!" whined Scout, in a fetal position while rocking side to side slowly and holding his butt in agony.

Medic shook his head in disappointment and said, "Zat's is vhat you get."

"Ho ho!" giggled the Heavy gleefully in delight.

"And you!" barked Medic as he turned on his heels to face the Russian giant. "Zose sandviches vere for ze vhole group! Now everyone else is starving except you!"

The massive man cowered before the tomato-faced German, and Heavy could almost see the steam coming out of Medics' ears. He didn't dare to say he was hungry again, fearing his favorite teammate would take out his bone saw and cut him up into pieces of Russian mutton.

"Then I'll whip up something for ya'll," said the Texan, stepping in between Medic and Heavy. "How does barbecue sound fellas?"

Instantly, Scout jumped over right over to Engineer, forgetting all about the aching pain in his buttocks. Scout loved Engineer's grilled meat, it went great with sugary soda, such as Atomic Punch. Putting one bandaged arm over Engineers' shoulders and the other poking him in his left arm.

"Gunna make those patties, right Hard-Hat?" said Scout in his best smooth persuasive voice.

Sniper left the others to the camper van, hearing Engineer and the others discuss their dinner plans. He wanted to check if he had any spare gasoline he had long forgotten, but the chances were slim but worth a shot. Sauntering through the alley ways and between the wooden buildings, he was passing many identical crates. Sniper wasn't aware of it first, until he saw one of the crates opened with an arm sticking out on the top and gleaming in the sunlight. This startled him, and he pulled out his kukri swiftly from his sheath that was strapped to his side and posed in an defense stance. The Aussie had developed this instinct overtime, thanks to the Blue Spy, and was no stranger to surprise attacks. Sniper carried his kukri wherever he went, even in his own cozy camper van.

Realizing he was in no danger, he slowly sheathed his kukri once more and gingerly crept closely to the projecting arm. It was gray, skinny, and robotic like.

"Whew, good. It's not a human arm," observing Sniper with his sharp light blue eyes.

He started to rummage through the opened crate, and found even more gray machine parts. This time it was a few fingers, rusty gears, a leg wearing an awfully familiar Demo boot, and Sniper picked up a almost round shaped part and dropped it in shock. His jaw fell down as he took a step back away from the object. It was a head. His head.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Wot in the bloody hell is this?" cringed Sniper, staring in aghast at the robot head of the Australian. He swung at the metallic object with his hand and grabbed firmly on the top. Bringing it close to his face, he studied every detail of the strange thing. The shiny surface of the head reflected the sunlight on a nearby wall. There were no dents, scratches, or rust tainting Sniper's robotic head. But it had the Aussie's trademark sideburns, which were obviously not real but painted on with precision(and the rest of the hair), like made by another machine. It had screws and bolts lining up on both sides of the square-ish chin and continues to run next to the perfect painted sideburns and stopping at the tip of the ear level.

Sniper's fingers ran across the cold face and poked the eyes, thinking there were two rectangular holes. But he felt glass, so he peered down to see the insides of the eyes. There was a small light bulb in each of the eye sockets, but they weren't emitting any light whatsoever. The head had everything the Sniper had on its face, except a nose. But other than that, the head was clearly made to resemble himself, and it was eerie.

"Is this some koind of a sick joke?" huffed Sniper as he threw the creepy head back into the crate, and made a loud _CHINK_ sound. "Those bloody BLU's are probably behind this."

He heaved the heavy crate and carried it back down the shady alleys and dropped everything he was doing before, which was only looking for gas or his camper. He needed Engineer to see this immediately, otherwise Blue will finally gain a upper hand from whatever they are creating and win the war for once and for all. The weight was not helping Sniper and prevented him from dashing, and if he ran he'll topple over and drop the load of scrap metal.

As he was returning with arms full, he can hear the Scout chanting "Barbecue" over and over until Medic told him to shut up and sit down like a good boy. Sniper arrived at the scene and wanted to call for Engineer. But Engineer was busy at the moment trying to set up the griller with Heavy, who was lifting the heavier parts for the Engineer.

"_I'll talk to him later after the barbie,"_ thought Sniper to himself and put the crate near one of the many haystacks there were.

Medic poked his strip steak around for a bit with a dull fork. Heavy was sitting next to the Medic, who was gobbling away from five different plates while Scout was doing the same. But he was near his limit, and wanted to beat Heavy's appetite. Eventually Scout was too full and couldn't even move from the table and started moaning "Doc." Sniper was relaxing and sitting back on a lawn chair while Engineering was calming strumming his guitar.

"Something wrong Doc?" asked Engineer as he stopped playing his guitar and arching an eyebrow at the picky German.

"Ja Herr Engineer, someone as smart as you can figure it out," replied Medic and continue to jab at his meat.

"If ya didn't like my grilling Doc, you should've said something," snarled the Southerner and gripped his instrument tightly. Heavy and Sniper made eye contact, and they both know something was going to go down.

"Iz not zat at all, but more importantly, vhere did you find such tender fresh meat here?" questioned Medic knowing they won't see the problem yet until he said it flat out.

"It was in one of those fridges back in the base, what about it?" said Engineer with a bit of annoyance in his tone, still not getting what the Medic was pointing out.

"Ve haven't been here for a year." Medic said plainly, waiting for their reactions.

Engineer was the first and his eyes bugged out, then the Sniper, who snapped out of his relaxing position and sat up straight, but Heavy had no clue what was going on and Scout was rubbing his belly also as oblivious as the Heavy.

"Ohhhhh," both the Australian and Texan said in unison.

"Vell?" Medic grinned smugly at the two, who were both dumbfounded.

"That means someone has been here in our base," concluded Sniper as he got up.

"Yeah, the only possible explanation," Engineer thoughtfully said as he scratched his chin softly. "Where you going mister?"

"I gotta show you this," said Sniper as he kicked the large crate with his long leg, pushing it into sight. It was the crate of robotic parts he found a few hours back. Engineer automatically rushed over, it was an instinct for him when he saw scraps of metal. They were like new toys to him in a way, instead of worrying about the possibly dangerous intruder roaming their base, he was grinning from ear to ear.

"I'll be darned!" exclaimed the smiling Texan, "This can help me invent or improve my sentries!"

"How is a bloody arm and a creepy head going to help you?" asked Sniper doubtfully.

"Head?"

"Yeah."

Engineer reached in and pulled out the robotic head of his fellow teammate under the gears and such and frowned.

"Oh Lord, what in God's name is this?" examined Engineer as he titled the object in many angles.

Heavy and Scout lifted their heads in Engineer's direction and came over what he had discovered.

"Whatya got there Hardhat?" asked Scout, wanting to know what's going on. Scout attempted to grab the head out of Engineer's hands, but Engineer face palmed him.

"Son, take a good look at this," demanded the Engineer, holding it up to Scout's face real close.

"Dis looks exactly like Sniper over here!" amused Scout, not knowing it was a bad thing.

"Looks much alike," agreed Heavy.

"Vho built zese?" asking Medic who was holding a blue-ish leg who was somehow next to the Aussie.

"Judging by the color, it's those god darn BLU's." Engineer said while shaking his head in disapproval. "Boy, those sneaky little bastards."

"So wot do we do now with this?" Sniper asked as he nudged the crate with his pointy toed leather boot.

"I say we start moving our asses and beat the crap outta every single BLU," suggested Scout as he flexed his arms.

"Sounds like good plan," agreeing once more with Scout and cracked his massive knuckles with his bear like hands.

"Or I build something new with more gun to surprise those BLU's," said Engineer with confidence thinking the others would go with his plan of attack.

"I'm in favor of Herr Engineer's idea," Medic nodded approvingly and held the thin robot arm, "Ve have an advantage since ve know vat zey are building."

"Are you all sure BLU built these?" doubting Sniper.

"Ya blind chucklehead?" mocked Scout as he sneered, "What color do ya see, huh?"

"Wotever BLU gets, we get ya mongrel!" snapped Sniper, wiping the smirk off of Scout's face. "Why don't we call Spook to spy on the enemy for us to see wot their doing?"

"I think that's a good idea, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves yet," said Engineer and he lifted his arm and pointed in a direction. "I saw a payphone back there while getting the grill with Heavy. Besides, we need to let the rest of our team know where we are."

"What does Heavy do?" Heavy asked Medic who was thinking deeply in the moment.

"Heavy, you and Scout unpack my tools and your weapons into the base's lockers and search the area for any more of these crates," instructed Engineer and turned to Sniper and Medic. "You two tell the rest of our team our whereabouts and ask the Spy to collect intel about this."

"Do I tell the others about the robot scraps?" asked Sniper who was walking towards the payphone's direction while tugging along the German.

"No, keep this between us and the Spy, the others are blabber-mouths," chuckled Engineer. "They might shout it out during battle, alerting the other team."

"Right," nodded Sniper and set out to find the payphone while Medic followed a bit behind the Australian.

"What are ya up to?" Scout asked accusingly, not wanting to do work if Engineer ordered them and do nothing himself.

"I got some tinkering to do, and it'll help if you brought some crates for me," said Engineer as he picked up the crate with both arms. "Keep an eye out boys will ya?"

And with that, Engineer disappeared into the base leaving Scout and Heavy alone.

Sniper and Medic walked together in silence, where Medic was still thinking. The Australian didn't mind at all, he was a loner and preferred this rather chatting about the hot weather. But he wanted to know what's going on in Medic's mind, since he had been quiet for a while. Fortunately, the Doctor wanted to discuss his thoughts.

"Vhat if the BLU's aren't behind this?" Medic asked, starting a conversation between them.

"Then who else is there, the Administrator?" snorted Sniper, the thought was silly enough to crack him up.

"I suppose you are right," replied Medic, "There is no one else vho could possibly build these except for the BLU Engineer."

The two men continued to cross the barren land, leaving to the outskirts of Coal Town. Medic wasn't wearing his usual white doctor coat and had his sleeves rolled up. He didn't like the sunny weather unlike Sniper here, who was enjoying the summer walk. Medic wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and moved his head up towards the sky. He winced and shaded his eyes with his hand from the sun's glare.

"The hot too much for ya?" smirked Sniper, knowing the German was absolutely hating the heat. Medic shot a dirty look at the smiling Aussie and continued walking in silence. Both of them weren't exactly chatty people, and they didn't have much to say to each other. After a while, they finally found the payphone.

"Aw piss," Sniper cursed and itched the back of his head, "I don't have any spare change on me and moi wallet is back at the camper."

Medic reached down and patted himself on his hips searching for his own wallet.

"Don't vorry, I have my vallet in my co-" said Medic but stopped short, realizing he wasn't wearing his doctor coat. "Verdammt!"

"Great, we have to walk all the way back then come here again," complained Sniper, not wanting to walk with Medic in silence no longer. It was getting a little awkward between them.

"I vant to try something," said Medic, standing in front of the payphone.

He dialed the secret number to their current base and a recorded message played on the phone.

"Please insert fifty cents to use the payphone," crackled the speaker of the old payphone. Medic suddenly began pounding the top of the booth with his fist repeatedly.

"Crikey! What in bloody hell are you doing?" yelling Sniper.

"I've seen Heavy doing zis once vith the television," explained Medic, pounding away making large metal banging sounds, "vorks like zis I zink."

"It's not the bloody sa-," Sniper tried to finish but the dialing sound of beeps were heard and was dialing the RED base now.

"How does that even work?" stunning Sniper, with both eyebrows raised in shock.

"I have no idea!" laughed the Medic and he handed the phone to Sniper. "I did my part, now it's your turn."

Sniper snatched the phone that was connected to the booth by a slim cord from the Doctor's hand. He pressed it against his ear and a click sound was heard from the other end. A harsh and very loud shout was heard almost immediately, giving no time for Sniper to react.

"WHERE ARE YOU MAGGOTS!?" yelled a familiar American voice.

"God moi ears!" cried Sniper as he pulled the phone away from his temporary deaf ear.


End file.
